Out of the Dark

by Sharon Sala

  She didn’t know what time it was in Alaska, but she knew it was a whole lot earlier than it was here in Missouri. Hopefully he wouldn’t have gone to bed, but even if he had, something told her that he wouldn’t mind waking up.

  Luke was finally home. His flight had been delayed twice for bad weather, and then the stormy landing in St. Louis had been hairy at best. It had been a few minutes after one when the plane touched down; then they were not allowed to get off until the worst of the thunderstorm had passed. Lightning kept striking all around them, until Luke was of the opinion that they would probably be just as safe making a run for the terminal as sitting and waiting for the bus to come and get them. But rules were rules, and the small jet he’d flown in on was not one with access to the covered exits.

  By the time he reached the terminal, it was close to 2:00 a.m. Walking past the closed shops on his way to baggage claim was like walking through a ghost town. The rain hammering against the windows only added to the gloom. He thought about calling Jade just to hear the sound of her voice, then chided himself for being selfish. What he wanted to tell her could wait until morning. By the time he got his luggage, then his car out of airport parking, it was ten minutes until three. As tired as he was, it was a relief to be in charge of his own momentum.

  The rain-washed streets were nearly empty as Luke headed home. Although the rain continued to fall, it seemed to have lessened in intensity. He glanced off to the east as he turned the corner. The worst of the storm was passing. It wasn’t until he began looking for his apartment building that he realized he’d driven into Sam’s neighborhood, instead of his own. Cursing himself for the blunder, he knew it had been instinct that had led him here. He’d thought of nothing but Jade all the way from Alaska, and now here he was, pulling to a stop in front of her home.

  “Lord have mercy,” he muttered, and for a moment gave himself permission to close his eyes. He was so tired. All he wanted to do was rest.

  It was the ringing of his cell phone that startled him awake. He jerked, then looked up, half expecting to see the oncoming headlights of an approaching car. To his relief, he was still parked, and it was his cell phone that had awakened him and not the blaring of another driver’s horn. He fumbled in his pocket, then flipped it open and answered without looking at caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  “Honey…”

  He sat straight up in the seat.

  “Jade? Is that you?”

  “Remember when you told me that one day I would know when I was healed…and when it happened I was supposed to call and let you know?”

  The breath caught in the back of Luke’s throat. Over the past few months, he’d begun to fear that this call might never come.

  “Yes, I remember,” he said, and put the car in gear.

  “So…I’m letting you know. I miss you, Luke Kelly, and I love you madly, and although I’m perfectly capable of living life on my own and sleeping all alone, I find that I don’t like it one bit.”

  Luke approached the iron gates, then braked.

  “Well, if you’ll buzz me in, we can talk about this in a much dryer location.”

  There was a moment of silence while Jade grasped what he’d said; then she squealed.

  “Are you here? I mean at the gates? I’m not talking to you in Alaska?”

  “Hell no. Fact is…we never did get to talk in Alaska, did we? And just for your information, I’m not going that far away again without taking you with me. So, are you going to let me in? I’m warning you, I’ve already fallen asleep once in this car, so if I sit out here much longer, just tell Velma to cook a couple of extra eggs in the morning, because I’ll be there for breakfast.”

  “Just a minute!” she cried. “I don’t know how to take off the security code. I’ve got to wake Sam.”

  Luke grimaced. Lord. Nothing like waking up his future father-in-law so he could watch them go to bed. He heard her throw down the phone, then heard her running out of the room. After that, there was silence.

  Suddenly the gates began to swing inward. He put the car in gear and then drove through. Within seconds, he was pulling up to the front of the house. Before he could get out, the exterior lights came on and Jade came running through the open doorway. She had on a long white robe over something blue. Her feet were bare, and her hair was loose and tangled, as she came down off the porch and into the rain.

  Luke got out laughing, caught her on the run, and swung her into his arms. He groaned and then kissed her, tasting the rain on her lips, before he scooped her up and began running to get her out of the rain.

  “You’re crazy, woman. Where are your shoes? Can’t you see that it’s raining?”

  “That’s not rain,” she said, as Luke carried her into the house.

  Luke set her down, then quickly closed the door behind him, shutting them in and the rain out.

  “If that wasn’t rain, then I’d like to know what it was,” he said, as he took off his raincoat and hung it on the hall tree.

  “Rain isn’t rain, it’s angel tears.”

  He shrugged off the odd reference, thinking it was something from her childhood, then took out his handkerchief and wiped the raindrops from her face. When she shivered, he hurried her up the stairs.

  “Good to have you home,” Sam called out, as they reached the landing.

  “Good to be here,” Luke said.

  “I’ll talk to you in the morning,” Sam added, and then shut his door and went back to bed.

  “It’s already morning,” Jade said, as they ran down the hall to her room.

  Once inside, Luke shed his wet clothes and, at Jade’s urging, took a warm shower. By the time he came out, she was wearing a fresh nightgown and fuzzy slippers on her feet.

  He kissed her again, and when her arms slid around his neck, he kissed her longer, then deeper—each time waiting for her to call a halt or pull back. When she didn’t, he thought he would die from the joy of loving her.

  “Are we going to make love?” Jade asked.

  Luke sighed. “I would dearly love to, but I think this one’s up to you.”

  “I would dearly love to, also,” she said. “Come lie with me, Luke, and be my love.”

  His heart soared as she urged him toward the bed.

  “You’ve been reading poetry again, haven’t you?”

  She smiled, unaware of how seductive her smile had become.

  “Some of that stuff is pretty sexy.”

  “No more than you,” Luke whispered.

  He lay down beside her, then slipped his arm beneath her shoulders and started to roll onto his back; then she stopped him with a touch.

  “No. Not this time. This time you’re making love to me.”

  She tugged at his shoulders, urging him to come to her.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “As sure as I can be until it happens.”

  He took a deep breath. “Just let me know if anything scares you.”

  “The only thing frightening about this is if it never happens again.”

  He shook his head. “Then, darling, you can lay your fears to rest.”

  Luke’s weariness was forgotten in the tenderness of her touch. Every tentative gesture she made toward him was reciprocated double-fold. If she caressed his face, he smothered hers with kisses. If she stroked his chest, he lay tender siege to her breasts. But when she spread her legs beneath him, he was afraid to move.

  “Please,” she whispered. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  Luke slid between her legs, then into her body as fluidly as water flowing down glass.

  For Jade, there was no panic or pain at the point of entry, only a steadily building warmth that was coiling itself up through her heart. She moved with him instinctively, letting the motion build the tension and the tension stoke the fire. Over and over, she took his weight without flinching, lost in sensations that took her farther than she’d ever thought she would go. Everything was Luke, and Luke was everything,
and he was giving her joy.

  Then suddenly it shifted, moving her to a different level, where thought ended and nothing mattered but chasing the push of blood thundering through her veins.

  She arched her body toward the motion, meeting it head-on as it slammed into her with unbelievable force. For a few seconds she would have sworn that she’d imploded, but then her mind let go, and her body soon followed, as she sank into the mattress with a deep, weary groan.

  The moment of her climax had been the beginning of the end for Luke. He let it take him over the edge into his own mindless pleasure, and when it was over, he collapsed. Almost immediately, he realized his entire weight was on her and panicked.

  “Oh Lord…oh, Jade…I can’t move. Give me a minute…just don’t be afraid.”

  She was laughing softly as she held him close. Nothing had prepared her for this. Not even the time before when they’d made love. Then she’d been so afraid of failure that she’d forgotten to focus on what making love was all about.

  But now she knew. It wasn’t just about trusting her body to a lover, it was trusting herself enough to let go. She’d known she was in love with Luke, but she hadn’t fully understood the depth of her feelings until now. She loved a man who’d given her back herself.

  “Afraid? Never with you. That was beautiful, so beautiful. Thank you for loving me, but more importantly, thank you for letting me grow up enough to appreciate the gift.”

  “You’re very welcome,” he whispered. “Although somehow, after the way I feel, I think I should be thanking you.”

  She shivered from the joy of knowing that she’d given him pleasure, then wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed, totally replete.

  Luke held her without mercy, refusing to let her go. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d first seen her on the floor in the New Orleans YMCA, and maybe it had been. Certainly a lifetime for her. The child she’d been at six had died with Margaret as surely as if her heart had stopped beating, leaving behind a mere shell of a soul to endure the ensuing years alone. But she’d survived and endured, and in doing so, had learned how to be a woman.

  Luke sighed. “I was going to ask you to marry me,” he mumbled.

  “Yes.”

  His pulse jumped; then he grinned. “I said I was going to…I haven’t done it yet.”

  “I just saved you some time,” she answered, then reached down and pulled the covers up over their bare bodies.

  His smile softened as he watched her eyelids fluttering, and her mouth go slack. Suddenly he remembered something he had wanted to ask.

  “Jade?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Before, when you said that rain was angel tears?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “So…why would you think the angels cry? Heaven is supposed to be a happy place.”

  She sighed, then rose up on one elbow so that she could look him in the face.

  “Look…I didn’t mean that angels really cry. It was just a figure of speech. I guess it’s just the artistic side of me that sees everything as a drama, but when it’s raining, in my mind, I see angels’ tears.”

  “If this is what you see, then why do they cry?”

  “They cry for all the lost children who can’t cry for themselves.”

  “I cried for you,” Luke said.

  She touched his face, then his heart, feeling the steady, rhythmic thump.

  “I know, darling. I heard and was healed.”

  Epilogue

  It had taken Sam Cochrane most of his life to amass the fortune that was now his. His daughter, Jade Cochrane Kelly, had made her own in five years. Her art was in high demand, the unique thumbprint signature impossible to forge, and it had all started after the birth of Amy Ann.

  Luke and Jade had married before her first Christmas home and, at Sam’s invitation, made the decision to live in the Cochrane home. As Sam had pointed out, the house was enormous, and it was going to be Jade’s one day, anyway. He admitted that it was a selfish invitation on his part, and that his feelings would not be hurt if they declined. But Luke had seen the yearning on Sam’s face and known how hard it was going to be for Sam to give her up so soon after their brief reunion.

  So they’d stayed, and thrived, and ten months after their wedding day, Jade had given birth to their daughter, Amy Ann.

  Jade was a typical new mother: a little anxious, a trifle teary, and proud beyond words. And even though Amy Ann was a good baby and was soon sleeping through most of the night, Jade would still get up in the quiet of early morning and go into the nursery, just to make sure that her baby was all right. It was during one of those times that Jade realized she wasn’t the only one keeping watch over Amy Ann.

  Sometime after midnight, Jade woke. Quietly, so as not to waken Luke, she slipped out of bed and tiptoed into the adjoining nursery to check on the baby. It was then that she saw motion in the air near the foot of her baby’s crib. It was neither substance nor light, and yet Jade knew it was Raphael—following the path in spirit that he’d followed in life.

  She thought his name without speaking it and felt the answer in her heart.

  Yes, honey, it’s me. She’s so beautiful. Just like you.

  Then she whispered softly. “Keep her safe for me, Rafie.”

  Always.

  Her heart was easy as she went back to her bed. And even as she settled back within the shelter of Luke’s arms, she couldn’t quit thinking about what she’d sensed. The next day, when Amy Ann was taking her nap, Jade took the baby monitor up to her studio and picked up a brush. She’d been so moved by what she’d seen and heard that she wanted to capture it on canvas.

  And so she’d painted him, giving him the shape that she’d remembered, but transparent, and with sheltering wings as he stood at the foot of a baby’s crib. In the crib, a very small baby with dark curly hair slept peacefully, bathed in the angel’s inner light. She’d called it The Guardian. Within months she’d done seven more. Each time with a different child, but always with the Guardian on duty, watching over those who could not take care of themselves.

  By the end of the first year she’d painted a dozen of the Guardian paintings, and as an afterthought, hung them with other pieces of her work in her first professional show.

  To her shock and Luke’s delight, every one of the Guardian paintings sold at top price. The uproar for more took her by surprise, but she did what she could to keep up with the demand, although being Luke Kelly’s wife and Amy Ann’s mother was her first priority.

  Now, five years later, the Guardian paintings were famous worldwide. Through countless interviews, it had become apparent to the world that the angel in the paintings was her old friend Raphael—the man who’d been murdered. It gave Jade a sense of satisfaction in knowing that, because of the paintings, neither he nor his name would ever be forgotten.

  But this morning her fame was taking a huge back seat to one of the more complicated milestones of life. It was her daughter’s first day of school.

  Amy Ann was ready to begin kindergarten, and Jade’s old anxieties had begun to surface. It was the first time that her daughter would be in the care of someone other than family or friends, and she couldn’t stop thinking of how innocent and fragile children were.

  Luke knew she was worried, although she’d done a good job of hiding it from their child. He’d cornered her outside their bedroom door, seen the stricken look on her face and taken her in his arms.

  “Honey, you’re only feeling what all mothers feel.” Then he sighed. “I’m not so happy about this myself.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I like knowing that you and Amy Ann are here in this house when I come home. I like knowing that we can do things together at the drop of a hat. But that’s all over now. She’s growing and changing, just as you did when we first met. Change is part of living, even though it’s often uncomfortable for those who love us best.”

  Jade made a face, then smiled. “I guess you’re right.”
r />   “I know I’m right.”

  She laughed.

  “Mommy. Daddy. I’m ready to go.”

  They turned to see Amy Ann running out of her room and into the hall. She was dragging her backpack by one strap, and the neat little ponytail that Jade had made in her hair had already loosened and shifted to the side of her head.

  Jade looked properly horrified.

  “She might look like Mommy, but she’s her daddy’s girl all over,” Luke said, and then burst out laughing.

  “Wait,” Jade said. “I need to fix your hair.”

  Amy Ann frowned and grabbed at her ponytail, unwilling to go back under the brush.

  “You already fixed my hair.”

  “Yes, well, you unfixed it,” Jade said, and quickly restored it to a proper do as Luke went to get the car.

  Amy Ann frowned and then puffed out her cheeks as Jade tossed her hairbrush aside.

  “Now can we go?”

  “Yes, we can go.” Then she held out her hand, and together, they hurried down the stairs.

  “Bye, bye, Grandpa!” Amy Ann shrieked.

  Sam came hurrying out of his office and gave his granddaughter a big kiss.

  “You look great,” he said. “Have a wonderful day.”

  “Oh, yes, I will,” she said.

  “You’re going to be a big girl for me, aren’t you?” he asked, referring to an earlier conversation they’d had regarding her reluctance to leave Mommy behind.

  “Oh, yes,” Amy Ann said. “Besides, I’m not going by myself.”

  Jade frowned. “I’m only going as far as the classroom door, darling. You know I can’t stay.”

  “Oh, I know,” Amy Ann said. “I didn’t mean you.”

  “Then who do you mean?” Jade asked.

  “My friend will be there.”